ePly Blog

College students. There’s hundreds of them on campus, working on homework, drinking coffee like it’s water, and hanging out with their friends. You see them all the time, but how do you actually attract them to YOUR events?

When planning an event for university students, there are a few important components to keep in mind. It can be a little confusing to figure out what makes college students tick and how to appeal to them. Luckily, we have some tips today just for YOU to help with this dilemma (and they’re from a recent college grad too!). 

Event planning is a fun and exciting process, but it has lots of components you have to be on top of! All these details, when given enough attention, will help make your next event a true success. One of these important components is picking a venue for your event. 

While this may seem like a simple task, there are a lot of things to keep in mind when selecting the perfect location. So… how do you do it?  Not to worry! We here at ePly have a few suggestions to help you along the way.

Who doesn’t love getting some free swag at events?? We know we do! Handing out company swag is a great way to promote your company, especially at events like trade shows that have an expo hall. 

The question is however… how much swag is TOO much swag? What items are even worth bringing?

These are important things to consider when preparing for your next event. The general rule of thumb should be that your promotional items should be both unique and useful to the attendees. Still confused on what items that actually constitutes? We can help! Check out some specific examples below of some of the best swag to bring to events. 

Hosting an event is always an exciting time! It’s a great opportunity to provide a valuable experience to your attendees while also showing off your brand. The question is, how do you promote your organization’s brand effectively? 

This is where the importance of branding really comes into play. So, what is branding exactly? Branding is using different elements of your organization (i.e. colors, values, slogans, etc) to create and promote one cohesive brand that represents your company. When people see one of these elements, they should instantly think of your organization.

When it comes down to it, event planning is a details game. That’s because there are SO many to keep track of. Between your multiple audiences (vendors, volunteers, attendees, sponsors, staff) and their various needs and wants...it’s enough to make even the most veteran event planner’s head spin!

But whether you ARE a veteran or a total amateur, juggling all of that makes it easy to forget something. So, what details in particular tend to trip event planners up the most? Here are seven to keep in mind:

Planning an event is exciting and thinking about all your attendees is just as thrilling! But first you have to get them there. You generally want people from all ages to attend and one of the most elusive audiences can be young professionals (ages 23-29). This audience is growing in importance because they are your next industry leaders!

But the question is… how do you get young professionals to WANT to attend your event? 

If you’ve never built sponsorship packages before, it can seem a little overwhelming at first...

“What should I include?”

“How MUCH should I include?”

“How do I make my more expensive packages worth the investment??”

Well, I’m going to let you in on a little secret...it’s all up to you! And if that makes it even more overwhelming, don’t panic. The trick is to create a few basic packages that you can use as guidelines, and then tweak them depending on the sponsor. Here’s how to go about that -

As the event planner, it can be easy to forget that conferences can feel extremely busy for attendees, too. A few days of bouncing in between sessions, grabbing quick lunches, networking, etc. is a lot of work!

That’s why you want to be strategic about how you gather feedback. Surveying attendees just after sessions means the content will be fresh in their mind, but the surveys should be short with questions that are easy to answer and get straight to the point. Here are our tips for post-session surveys: